and prayer services, to help individuals learn "synagogue skills" that include leading the service or a portion of it, and reading from the weekly Torah portion and haftarah (the weekly portion from the Prophets). Hospitality is also stressed as a foundational concept for community, and programs offered in this area include initiatives that coordinate invitations for Sabbath or holy day meals between those seeking a place and those with a place at their table to offer. However, the goal of creating and offering vibrant worship services that combine tradition and egalitarianism remains at the core of the minyan's offerings. As of 2010, Saturday morning worship services are held on the first and third Saturday of each month, and Friday night Sabbath evening services are held on the second and fourth Fridays of each month, in the DCJCC. Other locations are used when required, almost always in the Northwest section of Washington, D.C. Balancing egalitarianism and tradition The founders of the DC Minyan were committed to a traditional approach to worship and Jewish life, but determined to push the limits of tradition to include women to the greatest extent possible. They began by studying ancient Jewish legal texts, with the goal of learning the position of traditional authorities, "with an eye towards including women in the services . . . even allowing them to take a leadership role." The congregation's commitment to both traditionalism and egalitarianism has resulted in a number of innovative policies and practices that sometimes reflect approaches of other groups, and sometimes are a hybrid of past approaches. So, for example, the worship setting includes separate seating for men and women (with a space in between the sections, rather than using a more traditional mechitza, or physical wall), but calling up women as well as men to lead worship and read from the Torah. But, while precedent was found for prayer without a mechitzah, and even for calling women up to the Torah, no traditional source seemed to allow conducting certain portions of the worship service without a minyan—a prayer quorum—of ten adult men, a situation that seemed to ignore and show a certain amount of disrespect for the women who had come to pray. The compromise agreed upon at the early DC Minyan services was that the portions of the service that did require such a minyan would not be conducted unless there were both ten men